apropos / the 47% threshold
ike aronowitz, then 85, who had been captain of the exodus 1947, sits across from ruth gruber, then 96, at his home in israel (he remained, definitively, a man of the sea, building himself a large white house in the shape of a ship's prow overlooking the mediterranean). they've been talking, but there's a pause while she signs a copy of her latest book, witness, an autobiography in which ike only merits a line (a twenty-two-year-old palestinian jewish seaman who looked like a street-smart kid). the expression on his face shows that he's thinking to himself. he switches to his language, yiddish (they've been talking in her language, english, although they both speak both), because he's voicing his internal monologue. he says:
"ruth gruber. [pauses to mull] we don't agree about everything, but we agree about a lot of things. that's life."
"ruth gruber. [pauses to mull] we don't agree about everything, but we agree about a lot of things. that's life."